Officials are probing how a 51-year-old highway bridge came to collapse in the Italian port city of Genoa yesterday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 16 others as it sent dozens of vehicles tumbling into a heap of concrete and twisted steel.

Veterans dealt a blow over Gold Card

Hopes have been dashed yet again that veterans exposed to radiation on islands off northern Western Australia more than 60 years ago will ever be eligible to access the health benefits of the Gold Card.

WA Labor MP Reece Whitby made a grievance in state parliament on Thursday on behalf of the Australian Ex-Services Atomic Survivors Association, seeking the inclusion of a group of veterans exposed to radiation on or near the Montebello Islands.

Mr Whitby's father, Ray, was a 19-year-old sailor aboard HMAS Fremantle when he arrived on Alpha Island in September 1956, wearing shorts and sandals, after Britain completed nuclear weapons testing.

But a spokeswoman for Veterans' Affairs Minister Darren Chester said former Australian Defence Force members already had some compensation under a 1988 Act.

"Eligibility dates for a Gold Card under the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests were determined on the basis of scientific evidence," she told AAP on Friday.

The veterans who visited the Montebello Islands were exposed 85 days outside the October 1952 to June 1958 timeline.

When HMAS Fremantle was decommissioned, the crew transferred to the Diamantina, which returned to the islands in September 1959, but monitoring was instead conducted from the ship.